When seeking co-op partners here, don't forget to mention your platform, PC, console, or whatever: you can add suitable Flair to your post title, or simply [Tag] if you'd like. Timezone (for schedule) and geographical location (for lag) can also be significant. Finally, where are you in the game itself?

I remember downloading Borderlands on the free weekend and months later I decide to see if it still works. Anyway, go to my Steam Install Dictionary, launch Borderlands.exe, it comes up with a DLL error and then it launches! Believe it or not I can actually connect to online games and I still get Achievements! The only things that don't work is it doesn't actually say I'm playing it on Steam and it shows up that I haven't bought it. Anyway, pretty cool bug I guess.

If it's an unexpected unrepeatable glitch than I don't see how its any different from any other time steam messes up, like when they had sleeping dogs for 91% off for that hour or so. Buy the game if you want but don't feel bad for a minor error giving a single person a single game.

It's not a glitch though, Borderlands 1 doesn't integrate as tightly with steam and therefore has virtually no real DRM on it. He's going into the install dir and running Borderlands. It is piracy regardless of how you feel about it. While I have no moral qualms with piracy that's what it is. Piracy is the act of bypassing DRM in order to use content you do not own. Even if that DRM basically amounts to "Please don't play this without paying".

Updoppler is right in a sense. If OP can afford it and likes the game, Gearbox is really good to us and deserves our support. If OP can't afford it, or doesn't feel like the game is worth the money, he has no real obligation to pay for it.

tl;dr it is piracy because it's bypassing the DRM, but there's nothing inherently wrong about that.

"I remember downloading Borderlands on the free weekend and months later I decide to see if it still works. Anyway, go to my Steam Install Dictionary, launch Borderlands.exe, it comes up with a DLL error and then it launches"

I really don't see how that's bypassing any DRM. He launched a game steam gave him and it worked, at no point there did he alter files or even download the game through an unsupported means. He did not intend to get the game at any point it merely fell into his lap by accident and there is no such thing as accidental piracy.

The DRM in Borderlands 1 was pretty simplistic, it only works if you launch it through the Steam client. If OP were to click play in Steam it would say "You don't own this content" or something to that effect. Instead he goes into the install directory and directly launches the Borderlands executable. This is bypassing the DRM. The DRM is Steam saying "don't play this you don't own it" and bypassing it is going around it.

As I've said I have nothing wrong with piracy or bypassing DRM, but by definition that's what this is.

Edit to give an analogy: Imagine if you're given a no limits credit card to have a weekend shopping spree. During the spree in order to make a purchase you have to enter a pin when you pay for the items. After the spree is up you get to keep the card but the pin no longer works. You figure out that if rather than entering a pin you just sign for the item like a normal person you can still use the card. Is it wrong to use it? (Obviously in this case you're taking money from someone whereas there's technically no money lost with piracy, but I feel this illustrates my points since I didn't feel like I was explaining that well.)

eh, it was technically not his own doing that it was free. It was like when sleeping dogs went 93% off for like 7 minutes and people bought it, I wouldn't feel guilty, just lucky. But you should probably still buy the actual game OP, for the DLC if nothing else.